Matthew 9:15

The children (RV 'sons') of the bridechamber] i.e. the friends of the bridegroom, who, amid singing and playing of instruments, conducted the bride, accompanied by her companions, to the house of the bridegroom and to the bridechamber, and remained to take part in the wedding-feast, which usually lasted seven days. Here the 'sons of the bridechamber' are the disciples of Christ. Christ was first called the Bridegroom by the Baptist himself (John 3:29). Shall be taken from them] The first prediction in St. Matthew of the Passion. And then shall they fast] The first reference is to the sorrow of Christ's disciples after His death. The words, however, may be taken to suggest for fasting a permanent place in the Christian system of devotion, but a less prominent one than in the austere system of John and the formal self-righteous one of Pharisaic Judaism: see on Matthew 6:16.